Earlier this week the Ohio Deparment of Commerce obtained a cease and desist order against Unclaimed Money LLC, a company that charges for searching state records for unclaimed funds that may be due to people who have bank accounts, insurance policies, stocks or other assets that have been turned over to the state as being abandoned. The forms that were provided by Unclaimed Money LLC to its customers were phony and the company, in violation of Ohio law was unregistered. However, more than thirty companies are registered in Ohio to perform the same service and although what they are doing is legal, it comes quite close to a scam because individuals in any state can search the records of all of the states’ abandoned property lists for free.
TIP
If you are contacted by one of these type of companies, in whatever state you live in, either offering their services or informing you that you have abandoned property that they can get for you, the best thing you can do is politely decline their services and then merely go on line to www.missingmoney.com where you can access the records of every state for free to find out if you are entitled to any property being held by a state.